Final Fantasy VII: Ancient Blood
by TheAllBeing
Summary: summary: Who said fantasies have to be final? This is a story of an enmity that spans across space and time, where the impossible is merely improbable, where horror and heroism know no bounds. Death and danger lurk around every corner, the balance of light and darkness teeters on the edge of a knife, love and friendship blossom in the unrelenting night. In the flames of undeath, so


Prologue

…

"I have seen the universe yawning

Where black planets roll without aim

Where they all roll in their horror unheeded

Without knowledge or luster or name."

- Cthulu Mythos

**Chapter: The Beginning of The End**

_When you're immortal, life has a way of eluding you sometimes; I have seen so many summers and winters… I have lost count. I am old. I have seen many things in my long life: deeds of exalted good, acts of boundless evil -most of the latter being of my handiwork- and I have met many powerful adversaries, most of whom were felled by my might and magic. I am a Goddess; I do not know fear._

_I am unstoppable._

_It would seem, however, that I can be slowed down. No matter. As a native of Stygia, I am ruthless and cunning, calculating all odds and every possibility. However, there is one factor that can never truly be predicted to be anything but unpredictable: Chaos. The universal energy of entropy. Yet even chaos can be prepared for, to a point, and just as I did two hundred years ago, I will do so again. _

Jenovas' immaterial form grinned, despite the insane, ancient being practically snapping at her heels as she fled across the planes. Not even this creature that time forgot could stop her. For now, she needed a place to regroup and revise… A place where she could have a little fun while she perfected her tactics.

Suddenly the memory of a backwater world tucked into an obscure corner of the multiverse came to her, a place that her body had died on some millennia ago, when she had been young and foolish. It would take awhile for the pathetic, accursed creature in pursuit to find her there -and when that happened, she would be ready.

_I will finally put an end to this, and this pitiable little world will be my playground and battlefield. Oh, this is going to be so much fun._

- o0o -

**Chapter: Twist of Fate**

Far from civilization, in the vast empty tundra in the northern reaches of the world, the wind began to rise, violently swirling outward from an ancient, long forgotten ziggurat. At its zenith, a great stone ring stood, humming with energy for the first time in centuries as the air within the ring began to shimmer. Wild animals and monsters alike fled in terror from the immense energy of the being forcing its way through the fabric of reality.

She couldn't get through.

She didn't understand.

She wanted to kill -had to- but couldn't manifest a physical body in this new world to do so... she was stuck in the Shadow Realm: a warped, wavering reflection of its physical counterpart that was rendered in black and shades of grey. Here, vile, evil things ran wild, waiting for an opportunity to snatch up hapless victims out of the night. She hated the colorlessness of the place, she hated Jenova… she hated everything.

For many, many days she roamed the dark, empty lands of the Shadow Realm destroying any entity she came across. No big, bad deed, she reasoned -as best as her agony ridden mind could, anyways- very few undead creatures weren't evil. Since the curse, all her thoughts revolved around killing: it made the bloodthirsty chains loosen and the pain lessen to a tolerable level. Day in and day out, she hunted.

Then, six empty years after her arrival, something very strange happened.

Something very strange indeed…

There was a town she had wandered through… Niblenine? Was that the name? She didn't know, didn't care -she sensed _her_ nearby. Thak!

Mansion. There it was.

She entered the twisted shadow-mansion and was immediately besieged by insane specters thirsty for her life force; something that probably glowed like a beacon to the denizens of this dark world. She hated being alive. A specter took the advantage of her being lost in thought and struck out, slashing her chain wrapped thigh. She barely noticed, what was a little more pain? Still, she'd come here for a purpose… of some sort…

She extended her enchanted spiked chains- part of the curse and now her only good weapon- and whipped them downward and diagonally, tearing the puny specter to shreds, its shadowy essence dissolving away. The pain abated a little; that's right, the chains fed on life force when there was no blood to be had… She grinned as best she could behind her mask and swung her scourge of chains at a group of oncoming specters.

- o0o -

He stood there, barely aware of his surroundings, moving only to take up another book or turn the page or brush a lock of striking silver hair from his face. He couldn't believe it: everything his friend Genesis said was true! The research, the tests, the horrific experiments, all of it! He, "the Great Sephiroth", was nothing more than a monster. His entire life was a lie. Everything that happened to him in his lifetime was recoded in this little "library"… Every. Little. Fucking. Detail.

His heart pounded and he nearly shook with rage, he thought he could actually _hear_ his mind snapping.

- o0o -

Lurking about the mansion, she could feel a presence somewhere in the mansions' living-world counterpart. The pain was down to a dull roar now and she could focus a little bit. She couldn't tell what the living thing was exactly, but it intrigued her, so she decided to refer to it as "Puzzle" - because it puzzled her; emotions were coming from it in great, sudden waves that she could sense acutely: anger, sorrow, humiliation, pain… rage. Then suddenly vanish, like a light being turned off then they would come back again. She started to look for the source of the emotions -where are you, Puzzle?- because what shreds of her pre-curse self that remained wanted to go to it and somehow tell it that she knew how it felt and that everything would be okay and that she would kill anything that caused it pain. She wasn't sure if she could communicate through the barrier between realms, but she would try.

Searching for Puzzle, she came into a room with the oddest of things: a thick table with a shelf of white things attached to one end. Curious! She'd seen tables like this, long ago, before the curse. They were pi… pi-somethings. What was it they did again? They did _something_, she knew.

Momentarily distracted, she sat at the bench before the pi-something and tentatively pressed on one of the white things with an enormous sickle shaped claw.

_Plink…_

Music! The pi-something did music! She put all ten clawed digits on the white things and focused as best she could for some vague memory of her past was trying to force its way through the fog of her splintered mind.

… _Plink…plink… plink plink plink…_

She remembered.

- o0o -

He was close to finished with his degrading biography, most the books once lining the walls now lay scattered everywhere or heaped in careless, haphazard piles. He'd began to hear faint whispers in his mind. He didn't care, what did it matter? What did it matter whether a fucked up monster was sane or not? Who alive would truly care enough to stop it? Why would… was that music coming from upstairs? It was the middle of the night, the house was empty -he thought- so who was playing the piano? The melody was so dark and haunting that it could almost pass for a funeral dirge. He smirked at the thought; it was a fitting song since Sephiroth would die tonight. He would make sure of it.

He walked to the base of the spiral staircase and sat, listening to the eerie song he'd never before heard. The rest of the books could wait; he had all night to finish them anyways. A few minutes' delay wouldn't change anything. He closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. The more he listened, the more he thought the song would be better suited to an organ -or maybe an electric guitar. Or both.

Soon the music took on an ethereal quality that gave the impression of hope -hope in the face of utter despair. Or maybe hope was the wrong word. Defiance, perhaps? Interesting. Curiosity getting the better of him, Sephiroth stood and made his way up the long flight of stairs.

- o0o -

She could sense Puzzle approaching. Had it heard her? Was she somehow affecting Puzzle's world in her semi-lucid state? She hoped and kept playing; she had to finish the song before the pain came back -it kindof already was.

- o0o -

Sephiroth silently stalked up the stairs and through the mansion like a shadow in the night, rounding the mahogany doorway that led to the room the piano was in. He stopped suddenly at the freakish, moonlit sight before him: a pale, ghostly woman covered entirely in golden chains sat at the piano, playing away with hideous clawed hands, her tangled, hip length blood red hair obscuring her face -he wasn't sure but he thought he saw a glint of metal through her hair, like she was wearing a mask maybe. The weirdest part? He could see right through her.

Mesmerized, he leaned against the doorjamb and watched the ghostly being play her song, not even daring to move or speak for fear that if he were noticed the ghost would vanish.

He didn't want that.

Despite her horrific appearance, the ghost's presence was strangely soothing. The tumult of his mind quieted some. A thought crossed his mind and he wondered if she had been one of Hojo's previous experiments that had died horribly. Whether she was or not, she must have known great pain and suffering in life. The thought made him angry, he wanted to go to her and tell her that he knew how she felt and that everything would be okay, that it was all over -and that he loved the music she played.

That last thought brought painful memories back to him and he closed his eyes… Luna. Dearest Luna. His beloved. Would she still love him -were she still alive- if she knew the truth of what he was? He recalled the last night they were together: her beautiful, smiling form lying naked in his bed, her dark tan skin, her hazel eyes and vivid blue hair… there had been real love in those eyes of hers.

Yes, he believed, she would still love him.

He opened his eyes again when the piano playing ghost before him began stumbling through the notes she played. Her entire body began quivering and she spasmed, abruptly ending the song. Sephiroth could see the chains around her suddenly contract, blood seeping out between the links, then seemingly being sucked into the chains themselves. She jerked back in obvious pain and he instinctively rushed forward to grab her. His hand passed through thin air and an electric chill ran up his arm and down his back. Then, just like that, the poltergeist was gone and the mansion seemed even emptier than it had just moments before. He sighed tiredly and turned to make his way back to the basement. He had books to read.

- o0o -

She felt a hand pass through her. A thing of the living world had touched her! Warmth! Had it been Puzzle? Can't ponder now, chains are hungry. Time to hunt. She got up and drifted towards where she felt a presence in the living world moving away from her. Soon she was floating down a large, crooked spiral staircase. The presence she felt was still above her but she'd noticed another life force down here.

A wall? No, behind it. Huh. She scratched at the warped stone. She _had_ to get to it! Whatever was behind the wall was half in the Shadow Realm and half in the living one -and powerful; if she killed it, the chains might loosen for a longer time and might be able to… to do… something.

Thak! Must kill. Chains will be happy. Will think better.

Frustrated, she extended the chains on both her arms and flailed wildly at the wall, slowly breaking down the barrier between her and her prize.

- o0o -

Hours passed, just an hour before dawn and all the books finished. The last book, most recent one, had been the most devastating, filling him with a raw, agonizing hurt he'd never before imagined.

And Sephiroth laughed.

He couldn't help it.

Tears of sorrow streaming down his face -everything he'd lost; his love, his friends, and his will - he just laughed at the absurdity of it all. So entirely consumed was he by these nightmarish revelations he didn't notice the unearthly, evil chill that swept down the stairs then, freezing everything in its path in mere moments, making its way towards him as silent as Death itself.

"I have nothing…" he said to the seemingly empty air, "and now I am nothing."

A heartbeat later, his tears froze solid and he heard a voice behind him, dark and ominous and sickly sweet:

"Oh?" A female voice asked.

Sephiroth spun to see a very tall, naked, blue skinned woman with four arms and stark white hair standing there, towering over him. His eyes went wide with shock.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, little knight."

"…M- mother?" Could it be? Or had he simply snapped? Did it matter?

The woman grinned evilly, revealing a mouthful of serrated teeth, her red eyes glowing with a malevolent light.

"Flawless." She chuckled, "Absolutely perfect."

"… What?" Sephiroth asked, blatantly confused, "I - I don't underst-"

His words were cut short when the monstrous woman reached out with her upper left arm, faster than he could react, and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the floor. He tried to pry himself from her crushing grasp but she merely squeezed harder, choking him.

"I am Jenova, "She stated, staring into his eyes, "And you are mine."

As soon as she finished, she transformed into a smoky black mist, forcing her semi-tangible form into Sephiroth as he hovered above the floor. He fought back with all his might but in his mentally weakened state he was no match for the likes of a demigoddess. The last thing he remembered was a loud, unearthly roar -not Jenova, but another female - that echoed more in his mind than his ears and he saw a scourge of silver chains ripping through the mist just before blackness took him.

And Sephiroth thought no more.

- o0o -

She had completely forgotten her slumbering target the moment the unholy chill creeped in from above. It was _her_! Enraged, she struck out at the undulating coldness, vainly it seemed, for she inflicted no damage and went unnoticed. Thak!

Luckily, her violent hatred of that extra planar being gave her focus and she shrugged off the worst of the pain and waited for the opportune moment to strike. When the time came, she lashed out with all the strength her cursed form could muster and let out a great roar -mentally, at least, since the mask and collar that bound her prevented even simple speech - and struck home, her chains cutting through the evil bitch that had put this curse upon her. The chains that ensorcelled her drew energy from that wound and lessened considerably, allowing her some coherent thought.

Then the cold, black mist simply vanished. Jenova's presence was still there but she was entirely in the world of the living again. No! No! Not now! She had been so close! She _had_ to get to the living world!

…Her prize. Yes, the supposed conduit. She'd almost forgotten…

A coffin. It was in there. She dug her claws in and tore the lid open. She couldn't believe what she saw… her prize was a man? She expected a fell shadow beast of some sort, not a man. Why was he trapped in sleep so? Was he cursed too? Her gaze wandered over his sleeping form; his long, black hair (she assumed it was black), his red cloak… red? Red! He was colored! No colors existed in this desolate world, how could he be colored? And yet, here he was. She'd forgotten how much she missed seeing colors. How could she destroy something so bright in a world so dreary?

Were she in a less cogent state, she would have killed him by now in an attempt to cross into the living world -the place she should have been in when she arrived in the first place - but she couldn't kill him, not now. What if her idea didn't even work?

She considered.

After a moments' pause, she replaced the now broken coffin lid and stacked what was left of the wall into a decent barrier. She would have to find another way into the world of the living. Until then, she would check on her prize every so often to see if he was okay. She decided to call him RedStar because he wore red and stars had always given her hope. She missed stars, too. There weren't any in the Shadow Realm. She missed a lot of things.

Soon after, she left the mansion and took to the empty black sky. Where had Puzzle gone, she wondered, had Jenova gotten to it? She was furious that she could do nothing to Jenova in this blackened hellhole. She hated this place and all the evil devouring things in it.

Woe to anything that crossed her path this night.


End file.
